Elizabeth's Cream Chicken and Rice Casserole

So I already wrote 
how I went between baking bread and
this casserole.
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It was a bit of an engineering feat
and I was happy in my sunshine
candles lit
kitchen.
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Years ago already
if things were going bad
or one had a bad day
or afternoon
like I did on Wednesday
I would bake.
Usually a cake...
*
Now I bake bread; sigh.
It's so nice to do I find.
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Meanwhile,
I made this great chicken recipe:
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First I roasted the chicken
similar to how I have done it before;
except that I had less time
so I cut the chicken legs and wings off
with Mr. Husband's great knife
and put it in my two metal cake pans
that have become my roasting pans.
The breasts and cavity I filled with onions and garlic.
Butter and garlic under skin;
dried finely ground thyme put in cavity and
on top with olive oil.
Wings and legs butter and garlic underneath
onions on top with the same dried thyme
and lots,
on both, of newly ground pepper and salt.


Nourishing traditions - I will have to try it
with fresh tarragon sometime.
I went with different recipes (both in next picture below)
from Joy of Cooking.
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I used pre-made vegetable stock,
flour, chicken drippings and cream
(amounts as per the cookbook
joy of cooking):
1/3 cup of flour
1.5 cup of half-and-half;
I added a generous 3 tbs of white wine
instead of sherry;
and it was stirring up something beautiful
a deep golden
with some onion from the meat drippings
floating on top.
Added lots of drops of lemon juice, some nutmeg
and salt and pepper as well.
it made it a beautiful golden brown sauce...

Cut a lot of the chicken up in to bite sized pieces.
Added to creamed sauce.
Let sit warm for a while.

My rings were off
and sitting on the counter.
I baked the bread while the creamed chicken sat,
covered.

The bread baked up beautiful.
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I needed more mushrooms and broccoli
so off I went to get them
while talking to my Mom on my
cell phone.
I have these cool kind of hipster headphones I use... 

Already had the Parmesan cheese;
two older pre-toasted slices of
Ezekiel bread that we had lingering in the frige...
(what we eat when I don't bake the bread
from scratch).
I steamed the broccoli
fried the mushrooms in butter
fried up the torn bread pieces in butter
with a bit of the Parmesan cheese.
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Did 1.5 cups of Basmati rice dry, boiled nicely.
Put creamed chicken in the
long Pyrex 9x13 pan
put the rice in
added the broccoli and mushrooms
the crisp bread pieces and
lots of Parmesan cheese on top.
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It made enough for
a little casserole

and a larger one,
9x13 one. 

Baked up beautifully.
Dinner,
with fresh bread toasted,
butter waiting to be melted off the butter knife...

So many dishes,
so we kept it simple and used mugs
that go in the dishwasher... :)
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We have enough for two meals this weekend
and froze the rest.
Yay!

 

The bread was lovely toasted!
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Oh, and the chicken I used was a larger one;
guessing between 7-10 pounds
so I am using the rest for stock
and a chicken soup.
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The stock is going to be made tonight
ready to be used for soup tomorrow.
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Did I mention that Mr. Husband is home?
He's in the office working away,
listening to these by Górecki.
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And the sun came out this afternoon!
It was brisk and cold with blue sky;
in other words,
my view of a perfect winter day
though with snow would of made it 
Ottawa-snow-and-sun perfect
but hey, I had some and now
and with Mr. Husband
listening to beautiful music.
Oh, and can I say that Mr. Husband had
me read GK Chesterton while he 
washed up the dishes? 
Clearly a keeper,
that 
Mr. Husband....